Transportation of liquefied chemicals is usually conducted through pipelines or by tanker vehicles. When tanker vehicles, such as tanker trucks, tanker aircraft, or tanker ships, move liquefied chemicals from an origin to a destination, the liquefied chemicals must be uploaded to the tanker vehicle at the origin and downloaded from the tanker vehicle to a storage device at the destination. Generally, a pump and hose arrangement is used for upload or download operations, with the pump providing power to move the liquefied chemicals through the hose from one point to another.
Transportation of liquefied chemicals is particularly prevalent in the liquid petro-chemical industry, more particularly, in the liquid propane and gas industry. Often, consumers in remote areas that do not have access to traditional municipal utility services will have a large liquid propane tank on site for storage of liquid propane. The liquid propane may be used for home energy needs, such as heating and cooking. Periodically the liquid propane tank needs to be refilled. A liquid propane tanker truck brings liquid propane to the home site. A pump and hose on the tanker truck are used to transfer the liquid propane from the tanker truck to the liquid propane tank. Similar transfer operations are used in commercial operations and in other liquid chemical industries.
Occasionally, the hose may rupture or leak, or the tanker truck operator may forget to disconnect the hose when leaving the site, causing the hose to break. If the valves on the tanker truck and on the propane tank are open when the hose breaks, liquid propane will be released to the surrounding area causing a hazardous situation.